How do you manage multiple computers and your email?

I’ve been trying to come up with an elegant way to manage all my ‘stuff’ so that it’s available to me where ever I happen to be and from any machine on the internets. I switched to IMAP for email over a year ago, but I’ve yet to find a really good web based mail client. We have Squirrelmail installed on the-gadgeteer server and I use it while I’m at my day job. It’s ok, but is far from fantastic. At home I’m using Apple Mail. I’d like to consolidate and just use a web based client both at home and at work. Any recommendations?

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I created The Gadgeteer in 1997 as a fun way to share my passion for gadgets which began when I was a little kid. Some of my other interests include ukulele, photography, productivity hacks, and minimalism. Learn more about me and my favorite gear.

I concur with Alan’s Gmail solution (although I still use other accounts to keep some mail sorted). I synchronize my Outlook calendar with Google Calendar using Google Calendar Sync. I use Foxmarks to synchronize my bookmarks across Firefox installations on several computers.

All of these are free solutions, unlike .mac, which, at least for now, does not help when working on both Macs and PCs.

I’ve been using Gmail for everything. No more POP mail accounts, no more Outlook bugs, nothing! I used Yahoo mail for years, but Gmail is just that much more straightforward for me.

One Mac, one PC desktop (work) and one laptop (mobile), plus a Blackberry. All bookmarks synced over Foxmarks between the PCs and the Mac.

I’ve been preaching the use of web-based mail to all who will listen. My father in-law did not. Result? His Outlook and Windows combo crashed hard on him on an overseas trip to Croatia. Before I could remind him to try the web mail backup, a “helpful” hotel desk clerk wiped his hard drive and “reinstalled” a bootleg copy of Windows. Gee thanks.

I have been using Gmail for a very long time and have no problems with multiple accounts on there (I think I have ~5 Gmail accounts and ~2 non-Gmail accounts). I log in one time and can send and receive mail as any of my accounts from one place. Plus you can use Gmail for your email provider for whatever domains you want to for free.

It looks like Gmail is a real favorite. I have had a gmail account since they first came on the scene, but I never use it. So here’s a question… If I would set things up to use Gmail for the-gadgeteer.com and ukulelereview.com domains, would email that I send through gmail have reply-to addresses with the correct domain? Or would it all come from my gmail address?

Now I have to go try Foxmarks. I use Firefox at work (PC), but at home and on the road (Macs) I use Camino. I could probably switch over to Firefox there too…

There are two things that you can do to get the-gadgeteer.com in your from address:

you can just forward your mail to a regular GMail account and use Settings::Accounts::Send Mail As: and add accounts there. After a “challenge/response” email, when you’re composing a mail, you can select which from line to use.

Personally, I did #2 and set the mails to forward to my regular GMail account. Then I did #1 and everything ends up in a single inbox. I don’t have enough volume of mail to need to upgrade my storage, but even that is a reasonable cost these days. If I need to respond with a different “from:” line, I just change it when I’m composing the email.

Gmail, like every one else. I keep Outlook fired up on one of my computers, however, and download a copy of everything to there automagically so that I will have an off-line backup just in case. Gmail used to be down fairly frequently but not so much any more, however, I like having the archive in my backups.

A note about Alan’s tip regarding forwarding all your other mail to Gmail, and replying FROM Gmail…

This from the link from Gmail’s Help Center:

“Note: when you’re sending with a different ‘From:’ address, your Gmail address will still be included in your email header’s sender field, to help prevent your mail from being marked as spam. Most email clients don’t display the sender field, though some versions of Microsoft Outlook may display “From yourusername@gmail.com on behalf of customaddress@mydomain.com.”

In other words, if you sent an email to someone using Outlook, they might say, “Oh boy! A message from Julie. No wait, what’s this?”

It was for this slightly annoying reason I just eventually migrated everything to Gmail and over time stopped using my other random emails. It didn’t take me long.

Julie, if you’ve already got a Gmail account, why not experiment? Send yourself some emails to the usual email reception methods (Outlook, Mac Mail, Yahoo/Gmail/Hotmail webmail) and see if the results are objectionable.

Seeing the “From Julie@gmail.com on behalf of Julie@the-gadgeteer.com” notice is probably going to be a deal breaker for me… Hmmmm… Like Andy said though, I just need to give it a try and see what I think.

So even though your OLD mail has been re-routed to your new Gmail home, there is NO “on behalf of” silliness as long as you reply “as Gmail”.

Because of this, I eventually just send things “as Gmail”.

Footnote:
This “on behalf of” issue seems to only affect recipients who have programs like Outlook, but probably not web-based email. I just sent myself a message via Gmail (as a different account) and the “from” line looked just FINE. Not an issue there.

I know it’s not strictly a way to manage mail across multiple machines but I use GAIM for IM and it let’s me know when a new mail comes in (and shows me the header) to an email account tied to a yahoo or whatever account.

Get mail from other accounts
Now Gmail can check for the mail you receive at your other email accounts. You can retrieve your mail (new and old) from up to five other email accounts and have them all in Gmail. Then you can even create a customized ‘From:’ address, which lets you send messages from Gmail, but have them look like they were sent from another one of your email accounts. Please note that you can only retrieve mail from accounts that have POP3 access enabled.

Have you tried .Mac? I know it costs money, which is lame, but it keeps your mail (and contacts, calendars, and bookmarks) in sync across all your Macs and gives you access to them online. I’m not crazy about the price, but I do like the convenienceâ€”and it’s rumored to be getting a massive upgrade soon, to include wireless sync with iPhone.

For Convenient Gadgets we use BlueTie. You can get the free version (free.bluetie.com) and link multiple domains to it (we have both our domains for different sites linked to one account) and you can reply from either account by selecting the reply to address from a drop down (you can also select one as the default). You can customize the look including uploading your own logo. You can also have unlimited aliases so if you wanted julie@the-gadgeteer.com or j@the-gadgeteer.com, etc., etc. It’s all web based, includes drag and drop capability. Also you can make email accounts for others too, up to 20 people.

I have similar e-mail needs, but prefer to continue using a client based system (Outlook) as it interfaces to my contact manager where a web based system will not. I switched to IMAP from POP about 6 weeks ago. It’s “ok”, but Microsoft has never really embraced IMAP with any enthusiasm since they prefer to sell Exchange server software. So…I’m looking into hosted Exchange. Is anyone using hosted Exchange for a small business? If so, can you recommend a reliable vendor?

The “me@gmail.com on behalf of me@domain.com” problem, which bothers some people, can be overcome with a service offered by Loa PowerTools, with which I disclose a connection. The free version might be enough for some people, depending on how and how often you need to use it.

You also might find that it obviates the need for hosted Exchange: you can continue to use your customary email provider and your customer email software.

Some .Mac (now MobileMe) users have found that it solves the problems they encounter trying to use MobileMe for multiple email addresses. See this recent discussion in one of the Mac forums. A more recent discussion of the same thing can be found in David Pogue’s NY Times Blog in late July.

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I'm incredibly picky when it comes to pillows. That's why I've been using the same one for more years that I want to admit because apparently, it's gross to have the same pillow forever. I've tried several types of pillows over the years but I keep going back to my "old faithful". I even told the folks at BedGear that I'm a pillow snob, but they were still willing to let me try their M1X Pillow 3.0. My full review is coming soon.